Julius Röntgen
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Julius Engelbert Röntgen (9 May 1855 – 13 September 1932) was a German-Dutch composer of classical music. He was a friend of Liszt, Brahms and Grieg.[1]
Early life and education
Julius Röntgen was born in Leipzig, Germany, to a family of musicians. His father, the Dutch born Engelbert Röntgen, was first violinist in the Gewandhaus orchestra in Leipzig; his mother, Pauline Klengel, was a pianist, an aunt of the renowned cellist Julius Klengel, born in 1859.
Julius was a gifted child. Neither he nor his sisters attended school; he was taught music by his parents and grandparents, and other subjects by private tutors. His first piano teacher was Carl Reinecke, the director of the Gewandhaus orchestra, while his early compositions were influenced by Reinecke, but also by Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt and Johannes Brahms.
In 1870, at the age of 14, Julius Röntgen visited Liszt in Weimar; after playing piano for him he was invited to a soiree at Liszt's house.
In Leipzig, he and his parents were part of the musical circle around Heinrich von Herzogenberg, and it was at their house that he first met Brahms. Later Röntgen moved to Munich, where he studied piano under Franz Lachner, a friend of Franz Schubert.
Career
At the age of 18 he became a professional pianist. During a concert tour through southern Germany, he became acquainted with the singer
In 1877 Röntgen had to make a decision whether to go to Vienna or Amsterdam. He chose Amsterdam, and became a piano teacher in the music school there. The aristocratic politician Alexander de Savornin Lohman, who was professor of law at the University of Amsterdam and an important figure in the cultural life of that city, was a friend of Röntgen's father, and he promised to take young Julius under his wing. According to Röntgen's letter of 1877 he considered the school "a place full of children and amateurs"; since the school was not supported by public funds, it appeared to attach more importance to the number of its students rather than their quality.
Between 1878 and 1885 Brahms was a frequent visitor to Amsterdam. In 1887 Röntgen performed Brahms's second piano concerto, conducted by the composer himself.
Röntgen also played an important part in establishing institutions for classical music in Amsterdam. In 1883, in association with composers Frans Coenen and Daniel de Lange, Röntgen founded the Amsterdam Conservatory. In 1884 Röntgen was heavily involved in the foundation of the Concertgebouw. He applied for the position of the director; however, to his great disappointment, the choice fell instead on the German Hans von Bülow, as the committee seemed to doubt Röntgen's abilities as a conductor. Nevertheless, Bülow was not able to accept the appointment, and the position went in the end to the violinist Willem Kes.
Röntgen turned with greater energy to composing chamber music and to his work for the Conservatory. He became a renowned accompanying pianist, working for the great violinist Carl Flesch, the singer Johannes Messchaert, and the cello player Pablo Casals. Travelling with Messchaert he came to Vienna at least once a year, where he would always meet Brahms.
During the quiet summer periods in Amsterdam, Röntgen and his family often went to Denmark. On one of such visit he met
For some years, Röntgen and his sons Engelbert (cellist) and Julius jr (violinist) performed together as a piano trio. After the death of his wife Amanda in 1894, Röntgen married the gifted piano teacher Abrahamina des Amorie van der Hoeven. The children of the second marriage also became professional musicians. Röntgen's son Joachim, a violinist, founded the Röntgen String Quartet.[3]
At the end of the
In the years from 1920 on Röntgen experimented with atonal music; he wrote e.g. a bi-tonal symphony in 1930.
In 1930 Röntgen received an honorary doctorate from the
Death
Röntgen died in a hospital in
Works
Julius Röntgen's works include 25 symphonies, concertos (7 piano concertos, 3 violin concertos, 3 cello concertos, other concertos), as well as numerous chamber, piano and vocal works. He also completed Grieg's unfinished String Quartet No. 2.
Röntgen also harmonized and arranged traditional Dutch melodies used as hymn tunes. One such hymn tune is entitled "In Babilone". It can be found as hymn number 325 "The United Methodist Hymnal" (C) 1989 The United Methodist Publishing House, Nashville, TN. In the Methodist hymnal his name is spelled Roentgen but the tune is the same and dates correlate with the time of his work. The same hymn tune can be found as hymn numbers 502, 508 and 649 in the "Celebrating Grace" hymnal (C) 2010 Celebrating Grace, Inc, Macon, GA.
See also
Notes
- ^ Scholes, Percy A. (1947). The Oxford Companion to Music ... Seventh Edition Revised and with Appendices. Oxford University Press. p. 811.
- )
- ^ "Untitled Document". Archived from the original on 4 October 2013. Retrieved 16 February 2013.
- ^ Donemus, p. 26.
- ^ Donald Francis Tovey, Musical Form and Matter. The Philip Maurice Deneke Lecture delivered at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford on the 4th June 1934 (Oxford University Press, 1934), p. 36.
- ^ Donemus catalog, page 23.
External links
- Julius Röntgen Foundation
- Röntgen Society Page Archived 1 April 2006 at the Wayback Machine
- Free scores by Julius Röntgen at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
- "List of Compositions by Julius Röntgen". Nederlandmuziekinstituut.nl. Retrieved 30 June 2014.